Re: I have a smart watch
Out of interest, what watch is that? It sounds just what I'm looking for.
4160 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009
Yes, but to me the case should come first. A finding by the GMC against them will be prejudicial to any legal case brought, especially if there is a jury. This is definitely the wrong way round, since it does not in any way affect patient care, no-one will die or become disabled as a result of their actions, and so there is absolutely no urgency at all.
@Squander Two:
"Contrary to what a lot of people commenting here think, it's not medical knowledge that's the clincher. A doctor who doesn't understand what's wrong with you can still be brilliant if they acknowledge that they don't know and so defer to another doctor. The big problem you run into with doctors -- the problem that can kill you all too quickly -- is arrogance."
It isn't just doctors - anyone you deal with that is confident enough to say "I don't know, but I do know how to find out" is worth their weight in gold, whether it is your local shopkeeper or a professional. The problem is, as I was once seriously asked by a surgeon, "If I'm going to be cutting you open and rummaging about in your insides, do you want me to come into the room with confidence bordering on arrogance or do you want me to tell you all the times I've had things go awry?" The point is, most of us want the people with our lives in their hands to appear more godlike than human. However, a little humility helps to temper that - the surgeon that failed to act appropriately to save my father's life was retired early as a result of our complaint about his offhand manner when we praised the care but asked why he wasn't transferred to the local centre of excellence. Had he said "I made a mistake" he wouldn't have triggered he investigation that showed he had not followed best practice in his treatment ...
"When they're not sure what's wrong with you but would never admit that, when they're sure that their years of experience mean they can just tell what's wrong with you and so they don't need no stinking tests, when they don't listen to their patients because they know better than some unqualified hypochondriac pleb, when, in short, they are convinced of their own brilliance: that's when you need to get the hell out and find another doctor, urgently. Not that you always have that option. Read the headlines: this is what a large proportion of malpractice and wrongful death cases boil down to. "My husband had brain cancer but his doctor told him to take an aspirin.""
Yes, but the medical training system leads to this. The concept of the differential diagnosis, which essentially places a premium on the most probable cause for any given symptoms, means that an atypical presentation will not necessarily lead to a correct diagnosis. The only option is to send anyone that complains of e.g. recurrent headaches immediately for a brain scan (which might not pick up the problem anyway), instead of suggesting that a trip to the optician is a good idea (which is more likely to pick up the problem).
"Speak to people who go see alternative quacks instead of doctors: they're not all just delusional; plenty of them avoid conventional medicine because they've learnt the hard way that its practitioners are not to be trusted."
We have a difference of opinion about the level of delusion of people that go to unlicenced, unregulated, and/or openly fraudulent "alternative" practitioners. The only way they might be considered to be better off is that they possibly don't risk side-effects from non-active substances. What these doctors have done is make the best available information easy to access for practitioners, thus making it less, rather than more, likely that mistakes will occur. Otherwise, people believing in "woo-medicine" are totally delusional.
"For me, this plagiarism is indicative of arrogance; of contempt for rules and a readiness to lie."
To be fair, my fairly extensive experience of doctors is that they think plagiarism is restricted to cheating in exams. Copyright means as little to them as it does to the average person that downloads music from unofficial sources. You are holding them to higher level of knowledge than they have. That the authors and publisher of the book didn't think of this shows greed and untrustworthiness that concern me far more than the actions of the people that wrote the app.
"But it does depend. 35 in a 30 zone? Who cares? 60 in a 30 zone? Yes, strike the bastard off."
No, it depends on a lot more - had he taken account of all considerations? What was the time and what were the road conditions? Why was he speeding? Was there an emergency situation? 60 in a 30 zone in a heavily built up area with children crossing the road to go to school isn't ever safe (despite the way some of the plod drive when it suits them), but it might be at 4am. Context is all.
As a lawyer and medical ethicist, I'm very much on the side of those who wonder what the hell the GMC is wasting time on this for. If, and only if, they are found guilty of something in a court should this become a Fitness to Practice hearing. With all the piss-poor care that seems to be being reported, one would hope that the GMC has more than enough actual, genuine cases in which fitness to practice should be questioned.
When the system only leaves you the option of defrauding it in order to leave it, then fraud is logical.
Let's just pay everyone a nominal, non-means-tested living amount and tax accordingly. Get rid of a whole bunch of bureaucrats who don't give flying fuck about the people they are dealing with in one stroke.
Used the automatic gate at Edinburgh airport the other day for the first time. Whilst quicker than Mrs Potsherd who went through the manned gate, it did seem to take an incredibly long time to adjust to my height (short person > taller than average). Didn't especially like having to take my specs off so it could get a reading.
I seem to fall into a slightly different category - I didn't think I would use many apps (which I still think of as "programs"), but, since getting my Note a year ago, I have acquired and regularly use several that are better than the stock items, or have functionality that should have been, but wasn't on the phone, or which only make sense on a phone. Examples? - and note I use these regularly (daily or several time a week): "Co-pilot" for satnav; "MapsWithMe" for offline mapping; a compass widget; "Aldiko" ebook reader; a better Torch widget with three levels of brightness; an easier, more configurable sound-profile manager ("Sound Profile"); an LED-style clock for timing ("StudioClock"); a scanner ("CamScanner"); Firefox and Opera; a better app manager (AppMGR III); a better file manager ("Astro"); a sleep monitor ("Sleepbot"); Google Authenticator; a better calculator; and two Czech-English-Czech dictionaries (fairly niche, I suspect).
Would I go to a platform that didn't offer a wide range of apps? No, I wouldn't. Symbian was killed by too few apps, and Microsoft need to encourage people to be porting their existing apps from other platforms as quickly as possible if they are to survive.
Yes, I'm confused, too, especially since it refers to "continuous verification" (or similar term - I'm not going back to that really smug video to check), implying that there is some active component to the whole thing.*
*Which raises a different issue - sometimes I want to be near my gadgets without actually being logged on to them (think mobile phone lock screen). If this type of "one token for all" idea is to take off, it would need a lot of fine-grain control before I even thought about adopting it (and still probably wouldn't - security in depth).
I'm clearly missing something here. Biometrics is about using aspects of the person that *don't* change much, or only very slowly. All the aspects of the heart's regulatory mechanism are prone to rapid change uncontrollable by the individual (at least, that was accepted wisdom when I did cardiac anatomy and physiology a couple of decades ago). This just looks like a system designed to fail at the important moments - like fingerprint readers on laptops failing to authenticate just before a presentation because the presenter is nervous and has cold, sweaty fingers.
"A very poor one then. Lumia sales are increasing at over 30% a quarter and Nokia were expected back into profit before the end of the year..."
Hmmmm ... unrealistic conclusions drawn from unsubstantiated figures. If it wasn't for the fact that Elop's ego wouldn't allow him to admit being "poor" at anything, I'd suspect that AC might stand for SE!
Yep - remember part, and also have a couple of places where you have altered the key ever so slightly: an O to an 0, or a couple of transposed figures. Even if it is captured, and assuming they don't beat it out of you (but, as has already been said, if they physically have you all that is left is your resistance to "questioning") then there is a level of "something you know" that can't be (easily) guessed.
"It'd be like the Cold War all over except bird vs bird vs drones disguised a birds and anti-bird artillery batteries surrounding every town, maybe some giant nets too!"
Orwell was a pretty good prophet - it would be great if Hanna-Barbera were, too! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dastardly_and_Muttley_in_Their_Flying_Machines.
"It may come as a surprise to you but in democracies governments are elected. People contribute to and develop societies to define and shape the laws we live under, the laws that governments govern. Those are the two most prominent differences between terrorist organisations and governments."
And, as has been pointed out all over the place, the German government of the 1930s was elected.
"Your historical references are all examples of where governments have gone wrong, or were never established by the people."
And what are your criteria for a government that has "gone wrong"? From my point of view, we have one - it is using draconian powers that should only be used in the direst of emergencies to stifle free-speech and legitimate investigation by the press. It is removing freedom from the average individual every day, and has been caught actually having a level of information about the everyday activities of its citizens that a government should never have. It has turned (over a number of terms of parliament, but it is still "the government") the police into a para-military organisation above the laws it is fails to enact without prejudice.
If you are old enough, look back to, say, 1990, and consider whether you would have thought that this country could ever have become what we are living in, and that this discussion could ever have been seriously had by anyone other than those at the very extremes of society. I say it couldn't - the government has gone wrong, it has acted over-zealously in the face of a trivial threat, and we, the population are suffering for it. That, by any definition, is a government gone wrong.
So, what was your point again?
"Jonathan Laidlaw QC said that the information the police had found was, in their view, "highly sensitive material, the disclosure of which would be gravely injurious to public safety".
He added that Home Secretary Theresa May believed it was necessary to examine all the data "without delay in the interests of national security". "
I refer all to the comment by Mandy Rice Davies ...
"... a decent short term solution (with fewer challenges) might imo have been taking bookings by phone rather than Internet ..."
Possibly - it depends how many bookings are lost as a result of the current library-trip set-up. I don't know what minority I'm in, but no email/web booking service = no booking at all. I simply do not want to talk to someone to make a booking - it is inefficient and time-consuming. Also, in the event of dispute later, I want to be able to refer to what was sent.
The standard of internet provision up here on the east side of Scotland (which is all I know about because it is where I live) is atrocious. I currently live six miles from the centre of Dundee (the fourth largest city in Scotland), and there is no fibre anywhere around here, and, according to the maps, no plans to put it in. Coming down to ADSL after years of VM goodness is a real let-down. Oh, and for the "well, you chose to live there" - I'm glad you are in a position to choose where you can get work and promotion.
"Civilians carrying weapons and shooting are no longer civilians."
How many armed people in the USA? How many rounds expended every year? There are a lot of people shooting there, and so, by your definition, they are not civilians? Or does that only apply when they speak a funny language?
Let me put it this way - wherever you live, if a hostile force invaded, would you let them do what they want, or would you fight? That's the choice the Afghans have.
"The law is not a moral construct."
As a teacher of Law and Ethics, I disagree with you absolutely. Some very respected thinkers do, too.
Your opinion shows you to be a legal positivist, which I shouldn't be surprised by on a site like this - research shows that techie types are more prone to thinking "If X then Y", and expect the law to do the same. It is therefore good that techie types rarely go into law.
And that is where the difficulty lies. You and Matt Bryant have the opinion, for whatever reason, justified or not, that there is an external "ill-intentioned" person or persons that could have a significant negative effect on the lives of you and, presumably, significant numbers of others. The government is, therefore, entirely justified, in your opinion, in doing these things.
On the other hand, there are a significant number of people on here, and, presumably elsewhere, who see the "ill-intentioned" as being the government, which is taking action far in excess of anything proportional to any significant risk. It is acting not in the best interests of the populace, but of itself. It is unable to accept that it might have gone too far, that it is looking ridiculous, and has become the body most likely to cause a significant negative effect to all - you and Matt included.
In my opinion, what the government and security forces are doing is utterly horrifying. I know they are nasty fuckers at the best of times, but it looks as if they are acting with overweening arrogance. The deaths of David Kelly and Gareth Williams look more and more like assassinations by those that should have protected them. The police look more like a paramilitary force to be feared by the population. The government, and, by extension, Parliament, looks like a threat to health and well-being of anyone that dares to question it.
What do you see in the actions and justifications of those you are defending that I don't?
You aren't the only one, ted. Driving is one of life's pleasures to me. I don't mind driving in traffic (it is still a skill), or on long motorways - there is the knowledge that I am doing perhaps the most difficult thing I have in my skill-set. When I'm competing, it gets better!
I recently rented a car with cruise-control etc. For economy, I set the speed at a reasonable compromise - not dawdling, but not as fast as I would if I had full control of the throttle. Most boring journey (350 miles) I've ever done, and it was really hard to keep concentration.
@Bluenose: I tend to agree - there is a world of difference between the "personal assistant" opening mail, and the delivery-person doing the same. One would be an authorised act by someone with whom there is a relationship of control which can be terminated at any time and for any legitimate reason by the person whose information is being seen.* The other would be an illegal action, and also one that breaches the contract the delivery person has with her/his employer (AFAIK, a postie** would not be able to open my mail due to contractual restrictions even if I gave express permission). However, if it is a postcard, the postie will, if they are so inclined, see the picture on the front, and the message saying that my mother is having a great time and wishes I was there.
To my mind, the question is whether an email is more akin to a letter (something that has some expectation of privacy merely due to being in an envelope to protect it from all and sundry looking at it, more so if says "Private" or "Private and Confidential"), or is it a postcard? This is a vital question for email service providers and users - does someone need to come up with the "email envelope" which is, in fact, trivial to overcome, but which conveys an idea of expectation of privacy?
*There is, however, an interesting argument about the information about the sender is giving, and what expectations of privacy there are from that side.
** Just as an example: there are many others in the chain that could do the reading, of course.
There is something to the whole interface discussion, IMHO. GMail's web interface used to be nice and uncluttered, but no longer. I am forced to use Outlook on work systems, and I cannot fathom how *that* UI is supposed to be any use at all, and Thunderbird is, as a previous poster has said, lacking in anything that might be termed as a pleasant user experience. I don't hate the GMail interface enough to look for other options at the moment (X-Notifier and GMail Notifier do a good job of letting me know when I've got new mail, and which box), but it surely cannot be so hard to come up with an easily configurable interface for on-machine email clients, can it?
"You can argue it all you like, but somewhere it has to stop. Or we'll be walking around with 10" phones soon."
If *some* people want to buy them, why is that a problem to you? It isn't as if phones at the small end of the market are vanishing, so you buy what you want, and let others choose according to their own needs.
Well, I have a Galaxy Note 1 which I have made *even bigger* with an Otterbox case which fits to a lovely belt-holster. If I'm going to be in a situation where that might be difficult (wearing a suit with no belt loops or loops only for a narrow belt), it comes out of the case and then it fits in a shirt or jacket pocket. The only time it becomes a bit difficult to carry is when I'm out running, but I simply wear a money-belt for that. I hope your head* hasn't exploded at the sheer un-coolness of all that - no that's a lie; I sort of hope it has.
Please guys and gals, remember that different people have different requirements. For me, it is to have a phone that fits comfortably in my big hands (especially now it seems I'm getting arthritis in some of my knuckles), that I can comfortably read e-books on, and which has a pen. I have never been [what I regard as] silly enough to text or dial one-handed - a recipe for dropping a phone if ever there was one - and I always carried even chocolate-bar phones in a holster on my belt because it seems the most sensible place to keep a phone. Substance over style should be the keyword here, not what the idiot marketers make you think.
Oh, and the Mega 6.3 - if it had a pen, I'd be seriously considering it.
* and all the other fashion-police commentators on here.
"Why do morons think it is cool to carry a dozen keys and a bottle opener dangling off one hip?"
It isn't cool, but it *is* efficient. My keys are attached to an anodised bright red carabiner (with a torch in it!), all the time. In the house they are hung up in the same place. Out of the house they are on my belt (unless I'm dressed up, in which case in my computer bag or suit pocket). No-one else in my house does remotely the same thing - guess where the delays and panics come from when keys can't be found? I then get told off for being grumpy due to basic inefficiency.
I do take care not to scratch people's cars though - mainly by not squeezing through gaps between them!
To cut a long story short - you'll prize my keys from my cold, dead belt-loop!
Leaving imaginary beings out of it, I sort of agree with you. The trouble is, I doubt the (putatative) powers of totalitarianism will be so crude as to mere kill these days. There are ways of hurting that don't kill, and leave all involved ruined. I won't go into detail - I doubt I need to.
"If we don't like what NSA is doing, we can just get rid of the government and put in a different government."
I'm intrigued by that statement - is he following the fallacy that electing people who have been chosen for not rocking the boat (too much) will actually be able to do anything useful against the entrenched civil servants, or is he advocating something a bit more ... revolutionary?